Tag: colorado

Who Had the Worst Week – 2025 Year in Review

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Recessions and economic booms may come and go, but we were reminded again in 2025 that crisis communications is – and always will be – a growth industry. Below is a stroll down memory lane as we remember some of the disasters that defined 2025.

JANUARY 2025

  • The L.A.-area wildfires in Palisades and Eaton caused an estimated $164 billion in damage.
  • An understaffed air control tower at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. contributed to an American Airlines flight colliding with a military helicopter, killing 67 people.
  • A spectator was killed at a high school track and field meet on the University of Colorado’s Colorado Springs campus when a competitor lost control of a hammer in the hammer throw event and hurled it into the stands.
  • Two Oregon men who set out in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest to find conclusive proof that Sasquatch exists died of exposure. 
  • A Southwest Airlines pilot was removed from a plane and arrested for being inebriated as he was seated in the cockpit performing preflight checks.
  • A former CBI DNA scientist who worked on thousands of cases, was charged with 102 felonies alleging that she manipulated evidence. Prosecutors identified more than 1,000 convictions that could have relied on her evidence, and an unknown number of cases may not have been prosecuted due to her faulty findings.

FEBRUARY 2025

  • The Girl Scouts of Colorado warned that a King Soopers employee strike put millions of dollars of cookie sales at risk.
  • Waffle House started charging a $0.50 surcharge per egg due to a shortage caused by an aggressive strain of the avian flu.
  • The Trump administration banned AP reporters from the White House for reusing to use the term “Gulf of America.”
  • President Donald Trump ordered the iconic Resolute Desk removed from the Oval Office for a deep cleaning after Elon Musk‘s son wiped a booger on it during a reporter Q&A event.
  • Hyde Park Jewelers in the Cherry Creek Shopping Center was the victim of a slow-motion robbery that saw thieves steal $12.3 million in jewelry and watches over eight hours.
  • Skype, the pre-pandemic king of video chat services, shut down amid competition from Zoom, Teams, FaceTime, Webex and Google Meet.

MARCH 2025

APRIL 2025

MAY 2025

  • The NFL fined the Atlanta Falcons $250,000 and Jeff Ulbrich, the team’s defensive coordinator, an additional $100,000 after Ulbrich’s son made a cruel prank phone call to University of Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders during the NFL’s draft. Ulbrich’s son took Sanders’ confidential phone number from a team-issued iPad that his father left unlocked.
  • A climber had to be rescued a second time while attempting to summit Mt. Fuji after he went back up to retrieve the cell phone he dropped during the first rescue.
  • Two years after taking lighter fluid and a match to billions of dollars in brand equity by dropping the name HBO from its Max streaming service, executives at Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it would rebrand back to HBO Max.
  • A Colorado Rockies fan sued the team after he was hit in the eye with a foul ball. In his suit, he alleged that the team is so bad that it encourages fans not to pay attention to what is happening on the field.

JUNE 2025

  • Gov. Jared Polis unveiled his “Bridge to Nowhere” concept that did the seemingly impossible: it united the political left, center and right in opposition.
  • Boulder found itself again in the wrong kind of national spotlight after a hate crime targeting the city’s Jewish community killed one person and injured seven others.
  • The former Dominion Voting Systems executive who sued MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell for defamation won a $2.3 million judgement, but it was Lindell who claimed victory after the jury only awarded the plaintiff just 3.5% of what was asked.
  • A postal carrier who stole, filled out and submitted 19 mail ballots as part of a rogue plan to test the security of Colorado‘s signature verification process was sentenced to five years in jail. 

JULY 2025

  • CBS parent company Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to President Donald Trump to settle his lawsuit against “60 Minutes.” Experts were certain Paramount would prevail in the suit, but noted that Paramount needed governmental approval for its plan to sell itself to Hollywood studio Skydance, which it eventually did.
  • Sean “Diddy” Combs was convicted of transporting prostitutes. Combs was found not guilty on more serious charges, but he also faces more than 50 civil lawsuits.
  • Chris Martin of Coldplay inadvertently outed a couple who apparently were having an affair.
  • Jared Leonard, the Denver restaurateur known for the Michelin-recommended AJ’s Pit Bar-B-Q, was indicted on fraud charges for allegedly receiving more than $1 million in pandemic relief loans under false pretenses.
  • Malcolm-Jamal Warner, best known for playing the lovable and charismatic son Theo on “The Cosby Show,” drowned while on vacation in Costa Rica at the age of 54.

AUGUST 2025

SEPTEMBER 2025

OCTOBER 2025

NOVEMBER 2025

  • Fourteen people died after a UPS cargo plane crashed on takeoff at the Louisville, Kentucky, airport. 
  • The FAA cut 10% of flights at the 40 busiest airports in an attempt to “alleviate the pressure” on over-worked air-traffic controllers during the government shutdown.
  • The clear winners of election night in Colorado were progressives, tax increases and teachers union-endorsed candidates. The biggest loser? That would likely be Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky, who spent the past year parroting President Donald Trump‘s exaggerated claims of “gang-takeovers” of her city.
  • Investigators determined that the password for the Louvre’s video surveillance system was “Louvre” when thieves stole jewels worth $100 million from the museum.
  • Some guests were given only 10-15 minutes to vacate hotel rooms when the Marriott-backed chain Sonder unexpectedly declared bankruptcy. 
  • The Wall Street Journal reported that the Colorado Rockies‘ GM position is actually the most coveted in Major League Baseball because it “is viewed as the sport’s ultimate sadistic challenge.”
  • A Russian K9 police dog selected to perform the ceremonial pre-game puck drop at a KHL league hockey game successfully dropped the puck from its mouth and then promptly bit two players.
  • Martin Bally, a senior executive at Campbell’s Soup, is no longer with the company after a lawsuit accused him of calling the company’s soups “highly processed food” for “poor people,” complaining that “f–king Indian” colleagues are “idiots,” and that the company’s soups use “bioengineered meat.”

DECEMBER 2025

  • The University of Michigan head football coach was abruptly fired and then taken into police custody several hours later as part of an assault investigation.
  • The Trump administration is abandoning the “woke” font Calibri in favor of Times New Roman. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a directive that blamed “radical” diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs for what he said was a misguided switch to Calibri during the Biden administration.
  • Disgraced journalist Olivia Nuzzi’s new book “American Canto” sold only 1,165 hardcover copies in its first week on the shelves.
  • Rocky the Raccoon broke into a Virginia liquor store, broke several bottles of whiskey, apparently drank some that spilled on the floor, and then passed out in the store’s bathroom. 
  • A Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office SWAT sergeant resigned before he could be fired after being found to have responded to the Evergreen High School shooting incident while intoxicated.
  • Pantone released its “Color of the Year” for 2026, and it was basically white. But because it’s Pantone, it had to give it a clever name, so technically “Cloud Dancer” is the color of the year.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • How do you celebrate an acquisition that makes you the largest marketing holding company in the world? If you are Omnicom, you lay off 4,000 employees. And champagne, probably. There’s usually champagne. Those layoffs are in addition to about 19,000 others that Omnicom and the holding company it acquired, Interpublic, made earlier in 2025.
  • If you subscribe to Netflix, expect your monthly fee to increase soon. Netflix outbid Paramount and Comcast to acquire Warner Bros. and its extensive library of content. Netflix agreed to pay $82.7 billion, including debt, which amounts to about $276 for each of its subscribers. Interestingly, the acquisition would also include Warner Bros.’ HBO Max streaming service.
  • The Denver Post has now missed five straight monthly rent payments to the City and County of Denver for space in its eponymous downtown building that it sold to the city in 2024.
  • Rocky the Raccoon broke into a Virginia liquor store, broke several bottles of whiskey, apparently drank some that spilled on the floor, and then passed out in the store’s bathroom. Local animal protection authorities took custody of Rocky, dried him out and released him back into the wild.
  • Penn State is the gift that keeps on giving to college coaches. The school was one of the first to fire its head football coach this season when it let James Franklin go in September, and its efforts to sign a new coach have done nothing but secure lucrative contract extensions for the candidates it was considering. The school was rumored to be interested in Indiana‘s Curt Cignetti, who received a new eight-year, $93 million contract four days after Franklin was fired. Then Penn State turned its attention to Nebraska‘s Matt Rhule, who shortly thereafter received a two-year, $25 million extension. Penn State next turned to BYU‘s Kalani Sitake, who just received a new contract whose terms have yet to be disclosed but reportedly make him the highest-paid coach in the Big 12 Conference. Meanwhile, Penn State still has no new head coach.
  • Zillow has removed scores rating homes’ vulnerability to extreme weather following complaints from real estate agents who apparently fear it will lower sales prices and their resulting commissions.
  • Private employers in the U.S. shed 32,000 jobs in November rather than add the 40,000 new jobs analysts expected, according to data from payroll processor ADP. That data is especially significant given that the Bureau of Labor Statistics still hasn’t issued a new jobs report since the government shutdown.
  • A Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office SWAT sergeant resigned before he could be fired after being found to have responded to the recent Evergreen High School shooting incident while intoxicated.
  • If you have been waiting for the Colorado Rockies to finally win something, good news! Their seven-year, $182 million contract with oft-injured outfielder Kris Bryant was rated the No. 1 worst contract in Major League Baseball.
  • Pantone released its “Color of the Year” for 2026, and it was basically white. But because it’s Pantone, it had to give it a clever name, so technically “Cloud Dancer” is the color of the year.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • More than 125 people are dead and 200 are unaccounted for in Hong Kong after a group of high-rise apartment buildings caught fire. The buildings were undergoing renovations, and bamboo scaffolding that is common in China and mesh netting that protected passersby appear to have quickly spread the fire.
  • Martin Bally, a senior executive at Campbell’s Soup, is no longer with the company after a lawsuit accused him of calling the company’s soups “highly processed food” for “poor people,” complaining that “f–king Indian” colleagues are “idiots,” and that the company’s soups use “bioengineered meat.”
  • Colorado State Sen. Faith Winter was killed in a multi-car accident on I-25 the day before Thanksgiving. Winter made headlines over the past several years for sharing allegations of sexual harassment against a fellow legislator that resulted in his expulsion, suffering a head injury in a bicycle accident and taking a leave of absence last year to seek medical treatment for alcoholism. Police are still investigating the cause of the accident.
  • Twitter/X introduced a new feature that identifies the country of origin for its accounts, and it quickly made clear that “many of the most influential personalities in the ‘Make America Great Again‘ (MAGA) movement on X are based outside of the U.S., including Russia, Nigeria and India.”
  • Some of the gray wolves released in western Colorado as part of the voter-approved reintroduction plan have now made their way to the metro Denver area, according to data released by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. If you hear a cackling sound, that is just western-slope ranchers, and it is hard to blame them.
  • Xcel Energy has asked the Colorado PUC for permission to raise rates by $356 million – a 9% increase that would translate to a $10/month increase for the average consumer customer.
  • The fight to free former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters intensified this week, with the Trump administration demanding Colorado turn her over into federal custody and a bipartisan group of Colorado county election clerks demanding she remain in a state prison. Curiously, Gov. Jared Polis‘ decision to remain quiet on the subject created a vacuum that caused both sides to ratchet up the intensity.
  • A website glitch caused the European electronics retailer MediaWorld to accidentally sell $1,000 iPads for about $17. Customers who ordered them received them a week later, and then, about two weeks after that, the company contacted them saying the advertised price had been incorrect and that they could either return the iPads or pay the difference minus a $150 discount.
  • Secretary of Defense War Pete Hegseth has turned his sights on an unlikely target: the Boy Scouts. Part of Hegseth’s problem: the woke Boy Scouts changed their name to Scouting America and now allow girls to participate.
  • Colorado State University suspended two players – QB Darius Curry and offensive lineman Liam Wortmann – for the team’s final game this season after they were captured on video spitting on opposing players during last week’s game against Boise State.
  • President Donald Trump has used the power of his office to extract a personal favor from global media conglomerate Paramount: a “Rush Hour 4” movie. Paramount is fighting Netflix and Comcast for the right to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, which would require FCC approval.
  • How is 90-year-old ESPN “College Gameday” legend Lee Corso enjoying his retirement? “It sucks,” he says.

Who won the week?

  • Denver Post sports editor Matt Schubert left the paper for an as-yet undisclosed new opportunity.
  • Denver Broncos linebacker Alex Singleton will return to the field this weekend, just weeks after surgery to remove a cancerous testicular tumor.
  • Colorado State University hired Jim Mora, Jr. as its new head football coach. Mora joins CSU from the University of Connecticut, and he previously served as head coach of UCLA and the NFL‘s Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks.
  • Ole Miss head football coach Lane Kiffin – described by The Wall Street Journal as “college football’s most hated man” – has become the prize in a bidding war by three blue-blood programs: Ole Miss, the University of Florida and LSU. Sometime this weekend, he almost certainly will become the highest-paid head coach in college football history. The only question is by which university.
  • Robert Irwin, son of the late “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, won this season’s “Dancing with the Stars.”

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • The U.S. Mint pressed its last pennies this week as the Trump administration has ordered the end to the little-used and little-loved coin. That’s especially bad news for Denver and Philadelphia, the only two cities where pennies were minted.
  • A generation of kids who have never seen anything other than “A”s on their report cards are freaking out because Harvard has determined it is awarding too many of the superlative grades and is evaluating steps to raise the bar to earn one. One student told the student newspaper she cried “the whole entire day” when she learned the school may adjust its grading strategy.
  • Fox31 meteorologist Kylie Bearse‘s recent PR campaign to bring attention to an alleged stalker that the Denver District Attorney’s office was treating with kid gloves has worked. Just weeks after a high-profile Denver Post article, the D.A.’s office announced it would upgrade the charge against the 70-year-old man from a misdemeanor to a felony.
  • If you know a Comcast executive, give them a hug. Fifteen years ago, 90% of U.S. homes subscribed to cable TV. Today, it is 50%.
  • Denver Mayor Mike Johnston isn’t the most collaborative person, and members of the Denver City Council have recently taken some symbolic actions to express their frustration with his go-it-alone approach. This week, however, they started taking steps that are more than just symbolic, and one of the mayor’s signature projects that is being held hostage is the proposed professional women’s soccer stadium.
  • Some guests were given only 10-15 minutes to vacate hotel rooms when the Marriott-backed chain Sonder unexpectedly declared bankruptcy. Blame from guests fell largely on Marriott rather than Sonder, and Marriott has been scrambling to find alternative arrangements for the guests.
  • The Wall Street Journal reported that the Colorado Rockies‘ GM position is actually the most coveted in Major League Baseball because it “is viewed as the sport’s ultimate sadistic challenge.” Said the WSJ: “Their major-league roster is a disaster. The farm system is in shambles. They are notoriously slow to evolve and sit years behind their rivals. Oh, and they also happen to play their home games in an environment that is fundamentally incompatible with playing the sport of baseball.” Rockies fever – catch it!
  • Ball Corp. is paying the CEO it just fired $6.5 million to go away. That may seem like a lot, but the head football coaches at LSU and Penn State are walking away with a collective $103 million after being fired.
  • The Trump administration has finally recognized the causal relationship between tariffs and increased costs of living, and it is frantically trying to implement new trade agreements with countries to lower the costs of staples such as coffee, bananas and beef.
  • Colorado Supreme Court Justice Melissa Hart is into her second month on a personal leave with no explanation why and no planned return date.
  • CBS4 reporter Shaun Boyd conducted a lengthy interview with the individual behind the controversial social media account DO BETTER DNVR this week, and Boyd allowed that individual to make a number of politically charged allegations while remaining anonymous for no journalistic reason. In Boyd’s 43-paragraph article, the phrase “she said” or “she says” is used in 25 of them. My anonymous sources say that Boyd has long been criticized by some for her approach to reporting that lacks what they consider journalistic integrity.
  • Japan is a country trying to overcome its reputation for karoshi – “death from overwork” – so many were stunned when new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi scheduled a 3 a.m. meeting with aides to prepare for an appearance before Parliament that morning.
  • The Denver Public School board censured member John Younguist after an investigation found he more likely than not mistreated some staff of color, although “not deliberately.” He said he plans to take legal action.
  • Here’s a marketing campaign custom built for passive-aggressive people with frenemies: Oral‘s TheraBreath brand has a contest that allows you to nominate someone who has bad breath and the five winners will receive “a personalized video featuring a pep talk” delivered by TikTok star Jake Shane and a promo code to claim a sample of TheraBreath Toothpaste.

Who won the week?

  • Denver was treated to a spectacular “Northern Lights” show this week. The aurora borealis made a surprise appearance when a a severe geomagnetic storm pushed the lights farther in our direction than expected on a clear evening.
  • I flew to San Francisco and back over the weekend during the government shutdown and FAA-mandated flight reductions, and both of my flights arrived early. A shout out to Stacey Stegman and all her colleagues at DIA for managing the behind-the-scenes chaos well.
  • If you think three chords is exactly the right number any song should have – good news! AC/DC announced it will play Mile High Stadium next summer.
  • University of Colorado Athletic Director Rick George announced he will retire next year, which begs the question: will head football coach Deion Sanders join him?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ 1 Comment
  • More changes are coming to KOA NewsRadio. A few weeks ago, the station let “Colorado Morning News” co-anchor Marty Lenz go as part of a broader round of iHeartRadio layoffs, and now it is moving conservative talk-show host Ross Kaminsky to fill the 6-9 am weekday slot. “Colorado Morning News,” which previously aired from 5-9 am, will now air only from 5-6 am.
  • Fewer PR firms expect to see profits in 2025, an industry report published by Davis+Gilbert found. Only 44% of PR firms expect profit gains, and just half project revenue rising — both lows not seen since 2021.
  • At least 13 people died and more are still missing after a UPS cargo plane crashed on takeoff at the Louisville, Kentucky, airport. The crash forced UPS to close its Worldport hub facility that processes millions of packages for roughly 360 incoming and outbound aircraft each day.
  • The Trump administration is cutting 10% of flights at the 40 busiest airports starting today. The administration said the reductions were an attempt to “alleviate the pressure” on over-worked air-traffic controllers, but critics said the move would cause more problems than it would solve. As of this morning, surgical cuts by airlines have resulted in few disruptions.
  • History Colorado is being accused of censorship by a coalition of First Amendment-rights organizations for rejecting a painting that is critical of Gov. Jared Polis and Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper. Sens. Bennet and Hickenlooper are currently candidates for governor and senate, respectively, and the museum’s chief creative officer says exhibiting the painting “could constitute a violation of the Fair Campaign Practices Act, which prohibits government institutions like History Colorado Center from making contributions to a candidate running for office.” The ACLU and others say it wouldn’t. Regardless, Gov. Polis and Sens. Bennet and Hickenlooper can’t be happy with the resulting Streisand Effect.
  • The Houston Independent School District has sued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxson after his office ruled the school district must turn over emails to and from the district’s public relations firm to media outlets who have requested them because they do not qualify for attorney-client confidentiality.
  • The Pentagon‘s draconian press policy may have caused mainstream media outlets like Fox News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC, ABC and CBS to walk away, but it has replaced them with new media outlets such as Mike Lindell‘s LindellTV and the influential pro-Trump activist Laura Loomer.
  • Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland died of an apparent suicide. He was 24.
  • The clear winners of election night in Colorado were progressives, tax increases and teachers union-endorsed candidates. The biggest loser? That would likely be Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky, who spent the past year parroting President Donald Trump‘s exaggerated claims of “gang-takeovers” of her city. As Westword noted, “We named the controversial Aurora City Council rep a Person to Watch in 2025, and now you can watch her leave her seat.”
  • A Thai businessman who co-owns the Miss Universe Organization has apologized for publicly berating Miss Mexico, causing her to walk out and several other contestants to join her in solidarity.
  • Following a months-long search, former NFL star Antonio Brown was apprehended in Dubai by U.S. Marshals on an attempted murder charge. He will be extradited to Miami.
  • Yale researchers have done the math and calculated that Elon Musk’s “politically partisan and culturally warlike personae” have cost Tesla the sale of 1 million to 1.26 million cars from October 2022 to April 2025. Meanwhile, Tesla shareholders just approved an unprecedented $1 trillion pay package for Musk, so …
  • The owners of MSNBC will spend $20 million on marketing to promote its rebrand to MS NOW.
  • Hail, uninsured motorists and car thefts have driven Colorado car insurance costs to be the fifth-highest in the nation.
  • U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert “attended a Halloween event in a costume meant to depict a Mexican woman, wearing a sombrero and carrying a sign that read ‘Mexican Word of the Day: JUICY.’ The sign went on to mock Spanish accents with the line, ‘Tell Me If Juicy ICE coming.’ Her companion was dressed as an ICE agent.”
  • Ryan Seacrest and Anderson Cooper can breathe a sigh of relief. NBC has cancelled its upcoming “Snoop Dogg’s New Year’s Eve” special.
  • If you are looking for a winter home, a Palm Beach, Fla. house considered a tear-down is available for a mere $185 million.
  • Investigators determined that the password for the Louvre’s video surveillance system was “Louvre” when thieves stole jewels worth $100 million from the museum last month.

Who won the week?

  • Pax8 communications VP Barry Hawkins has retired. Fun fact: Barry’s daughter, Amanda Hawkins, regularly sings the National Anthem at Colorado Avalanche home games.
  • Denver-based creative agency Karsh Hagan has partnered with Arizona-based Madden Media to deliver expanded integrated services in the tourism, hospitality, outdoor recreation, healthcare, higher education and retail industries.
  • I’m not sure which list to put this on, but the Denver Broncos are the least confidence-inspiring 8-2 NFL team in decades.
  • The Colorado Rockies are poised to make what could be their first good decision in years as the team finalizes a contract for Paul DePodesta to run baseball operations. DePodesta was a key figure in the “Moneyball“-era Oakland A’s and later ran the Los Angeles Dodgers.
  • The man charged with throwing a sub sandwich at a federal agent in protest of Trump administration policies was acquitted of misdemeanor assault by a Washington, D.C., jury. The jury found that throwing the 12-inch deli sandwich from what prosecutors described as “point-blank range” was not an attempt to cause injury.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • Tulane University has banned Colorado Academy students from being considered for early admission this upcoming year because a single CA student reneged on an acceptance offer last year.
  • WPP, parent company of PR firms such as Burson and Ogilvy, saw revenue fall nearly 6% in Q3, an ominous sign that sent its stock reeling 18% to set a new 27-year low.
  • Denver Mayor Michael Johnston‘s penchant for “secrecy and spin” is causing him to lose trust with some voters. In just the last week, he has faced mounting criticism for unilaterally renewing the city’s contract for the Flock surveillance system, a secret deal with developers that increased the amount of DIA-adjacent land they received in exchange for the former Park Hill Golf Course, and an ugly fight with the parent company of The Denver Post over $2 million in unpaid rent. And this is happening at the same time he is asking voters to green light $950 million in bonds.
  • After seemingly free-falling for years, Prince Andrew finally hit rock-bottom this week when King Charles punished him in the only way that remained – stripping him of his royal titles and booting him from his royal residence. He is now known simply as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. Andrew has been a key player in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
  • Denver was the biggest loser on this season’s “Love is Blind” reality dating show. John Frank at Axios noted, “It’s widely acknowledged that the city has a horrible dating scene, and the show somehow made us look even worse.”
  • The governor of Louisiana announced that LSU athletic director Scott Woodward would have no say in who the team’s next head football coach is. Why? The last two coaches Woodward hired – Brian Kelly at LSU and Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M – were owed a combined $130 million in buyouts after they were fired before their contracts expired. Not surprisingly, Woodward was fired a day after the governor’s comments.
  • In some parts of the country, seeing the first robin is considered the unofficial start of spring. In Colorado, we know winter is upon us when we have our first skier-triggered avalanche of the season.
  • Speaking of skiers, The Denver Post had an incredibly unflattering profile of Telluride ski resort owner Chuck Horning. Among the allegations: he was booed out of an upscale restaurant, he engaged in fist fights with his son and the resort’s CEO, and he sexually harassed and/or assaulted multiple women.
  • Ten million YouTube TV subscribers have lost access to Disney-owned channels such as ABC, ESPN and FX due to a financial dispute..
  • Perth, Australia, beat out Denver as host for the 2030 Gay Games, an event that would have brought 12,000 athletes and $110 million in economic activity to our city. Denverite‘s Kyle Harris reported that the U.S.‘s “recent turn toward anti-transgender federal policy” and “the Trump administration’s mass deportation of immigrants” left many global leaders concerned whether Denver would be a safe destination for the event.
  • Karine Jean-Pierre, the former press secretary to President Joe Biden, is having the kind of book tour that authors have nightmares about.
  • An independent investigation into Denver Public Schools board member John Youngquist found he more likely than not engaged in “belittling, dismissive and condescending behavior” toward some district staff members and exhibited bias in interactions with some district leaders of color.
  • Layoffs abound: UPS is cutting 48,000 jobs, Amazon is laying off 14,000, GM 3,300 employees, Paramount 2,000 employees and Capital One is cutting another 400.
  • Don’t screw with a Long Island wine importer. That’s a lesson the Times of London learned the hard way. The paper wanted to get former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio‘s take on Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate seeking to be the city’s newest mayor, so a reporter apparently Googled de Blasio’s name and sent an email to the first email address it returned. Unfortunately, that address actually belonged to wine importer Bill DeBlasio who offered his expansive thoughts on the candidate. The paper printed the responses, and politician Bill de Blasio immediately disputed the quotes. The paper then claimed the wine importer “falsely claimed” to be the former mayor, but DeBlasio released the emails showing that, “I never once said I was the mayor. He never addressed me as the mayor. So I just gave him my opinion.”
  • Somehow, former Colorado State University head football coach Jim McElwain received some of the stiffest penalties in the University of Michigan‘s “sign stealing” scandal. McElwain was the head coach at Central Michigan University when one of his assistant coaches allowed a UM spy on the team’s sideline in a game against Michigan State to decipher the Spartans’ signals. The now-retired McElwain apparently was not aware of the plot, and yet he received a two-year “show-cause” penalty that is essentially a two-year ban. Sherrone Moore, the UM offensive coordinator at the time who has since been promoted to UM head coach, received a three-game suspension.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • Colorado basketball legend Chauncey Billups – he is an NBA champion, NBA Finals MVP and Hall of Famer who played at the University of Colorado and for the Denver Nuggets – was arrested as part of an FBI investigation into gambling and “sports rigging” operations linked to multiple mafia crime families.
  • A woman in South Korea killed one person and injured eight others when she set her apartment building on fire trying to kill a cockroach. She used a homemade “blowtorch” that combined a pain relief spray can and a lighter.
  • The security team members responsible for protecting the priceless artifacts at the Louvre in Paris are #OpentoWork.
  • Casa Bonita has a surprise critic: actress Brooke Shields. She is the president of the Actors’ Equity Association, the union that represents the costumed characters that roam the restaurant, and her complaint is about a lack of a contract between the restaurant and the union.
  • Tesla’s net income dropped 37% in Q3 despite increasing vehicle sales, undermining an otherwise record-setting quarter ahead of an upcoming vote on a new pay package for CEO Elon Musk that could be worth as much as $1 trillion.
  • The Denver Post has stopped paying rent it legally owes to the City and County of Denver for space in, ironically, The Denver Post building that the city acquired in 2024. The Post hasn’t occupied its space in the building in more than seven years, and it appears that the Post parent company is trying to force the city into a buy-out of its lease.
  • A jury awarded nearly $20 million to six bystanders who were injured when a Denver Police officer fired into a crowd while trying to shoot an armed man in LoDo.
  • Target is eliminating about 1,800 corporate positions, Meta is laying off 660 people, and Rivian is laying off another 600.
  • Denver Broncos linebacker Dre Greenlaw spent the first six weeks of the season trying to get healthy enough to play, finally played in Week 7, and then summarily got suspended for Week 8 for threatening an official. The suspension will cost Greenlaw about $273,000 in salary.
  • Old people + racquet sports = eye injuries.
  • With unrest in the Middle East, war in Ukraine, and rising tensions with Russia and China, the Pentagon has ordered a Navy aircraft carrier to the … Caribbean?
  • Current Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton and former Denver Broncos QB Russell Wilson are in the dumbest feud possible.
  • Baseball may be known as the “American Pastime,” but a small town outside Toronto claims the game was invented in Canada.

Who won the week?

The Results of the ‘PR Disaster Bracket Battle’

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday, a panel of journalists and communications experts – 9News’ Kyle Clark, Westword‘s Patty Calhoun, Children’s Hospital Colorado‘s Patrick O’Rourke and Liberty Global‘s Bill Myers – broke down 16 of the past year’s most talked-about crises that were pitted head-to-head in a March Madness-style bracket, and more than 100 members of the audience voted – round by round – to determine a single PR disaster champion. The “winner” – United Healthcare.

Thanks to the panelists and everyone who attended the event.

Who Had the Worst Week?

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  • Fame usually comes with the kind of financial resources that allow you to deal with some of its challenges – gated homes, private security, etc. That’s not true of most local television news personalities who are highly visible but don’t command the same salaries. Fox31 meteorologist Kylie Bearse shared harrowing details about a 69-year-old man who has been stalking her for more than two years, and her frustrations about not being able to get the Denver D.A.’s Office to file more serious charges.
  • Denver hosted the 8th edition of the International Taco Bell 50k Ultramarathon that requires runners eat a menu item from nine of the 10 Taco Bells along the course – no Pepto, Alka Seltzer, Pepcid A/C, Mylanta, etc., allowed. If you throw up, you’re disqualified.
  • Opposition to the proposed Nexstar acquisition of Tegna, which would wreak havoc on the Denver television news market, is coming from an unexpected place: the conservative news outlet Newsmax. “This isn’t just about politics,” Newsmax’s CEO said. “It’s about whether communities will still have independent voices covering school boards, local corruption, and small-town issues that the national networks ignore.”
  • University athletic departments claim poverty when it comes to their ability to pay players, but you wouldn’t know from the amount they are spending on coaches … well, technically, ex-coaches. We are only half way through the 2025 college football season, and already we have seen a number of coaches fired – Stanford (Troy Taylor), UCLA (DeShaun Foster), Virginia Tech (Brent Pry), Oklahoma State (Mike Gundy), Arkansas (Sam Pittman), Oregon State (Trent Bray) and now Penn State (James Franklin). Some experts predict that this year’s firings alone could total more than $200 million in buyouts, money that schools are paying to coaches to not coach.
  • Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs is having a record year, but it told employees to expect layoffs in the coming weeks as it integrates AI to handle tasks currently managed by humans.
  • Meanwhile, NBC News let 150 staffers go this week as its parent company plans to spin off MSNBC and CNBC.
  • The triple threat of declining student enrollment, combined with budget cuts at both the state and federal levels, could create a financial “catastrophe” that forces Denver Public Schools to close more schools.
  • U.S. Department of Defense War Secretary Pete Hegseth has united our fractious nation. Unfortunately for him, it is in opposition to his plan to allow Qatar to build a military facility in Idaho.
  • Speaking of Secretary Hegseth, media outlets including The Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, The New York Times, Newsmax, The Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, The Daily Caller, Reuters, Bloomberg News and the Atlantic refused to sign on to new press regulations required by the Department of Defense. The briefing room won’t be completely empty: OANN agreed to abide by the restrictive policy.
  • Indianapolis Colts back-up QB Anthony Richardson was ruled out of last week’s game less than an hour before kickoff after he suffered an orbital fracture in his eye while warming up with a stretching band.
  • A Colorado man has been charged with bigamy. The twist? He is a Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) agent. Or he was, until he quickly resigned to avoid being fired.
  • Meanwhile, the head of Colorado’s COVID-19 response resigned two days after the state put him on leave while it investigated an apparent sexual harassment allegation.
  • R&B singer/songwriter D’Angelo, who died this week at the age of 51, is being remembered by everyone from former President Barack Obama to Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea.
  • President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social: “The Biden FBI placed 274 agents into the crowd on January 6. If this is so, which it is, a lot of very good people will be owed big apologies.” He apparently forgot he was president on Jan.6, and that President Joe Biden would not be sworn in until Jan. 22.
  • I mentioned last week that KOA NewsRadio morning host Marty Lenz had been let go during the most-recent round of iHeartRadio mass layoffs. This week, we learned that Jerry Schemmel, the longtime radio voice for the Colorado Rockies on KOA NewsRadio, was also axed.

Who won the week?

  • Publicis Groupe reported a 3.6% increase in Q3 growth in North America.
  • A new report finds that Denver diners tip the highest in the U.S., averaging 21.18%, followed by Austin and Seattle.
  • A record number of former Denver Broncos are expected to be at this weekend’s game as the team inducts former Broncos receiver Demaryius Thomas into the Ring of Fame. The beloved Thomas passed away four years ago at the age of 33 due to complications from a seizure disorder.
  • Meanwhile, Denver Broncos QB Bo Nix and his wife Izzy are expecting their first child.
  • Apple reached a five-year agreement to be the new home of Formula 1 racing starting next season.

Who Had the Worst Week?

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  • Tylenol is facing a crisis the likes of which it has not seen since the 1982 deaths of seven people who consumed Tylenol capsules that had been laced with cyanide. This week, President Donald Trump defied decades of scientific research to declare a clear link between acetaminophen – the active ingredient in Tylenol – and autism.
  • Xcel Energy has agreed to pay $640 million to settle claims that its transmission lines were partly responsible for the devastating Marshall Fire in Boulder County that caused an estimated $1.7 billion in damages.
  • President Donald Trump urged DOJ prosecutors to target former FBI Director James Comey, and this week he got what he wanted. Experts say the prosecution won’t be easy. Previous career DOJ prosecutors had declined to bring the charges because they considered the case too weak and even Attorney General Pam Bondi expressed concerns about pursuing charges before she capitulated to President Trump.
  • Amazon has agreed to pay $2.5 billion “to settle claims that it tricked tens of millions of people into signing up for its Prime membership program, and then made it hard for customers to cancel when they wanted out.”
  • Real life events have caused Apple to delay the premiere of its miniseries, “The Savant,” starring Jessica Chastain. The story arc focused on Chastain’s character trying to prevent extremist attacks that include a sniper and the bombing of a government building.
  • NJ PBS, New Jersey’s only dedicated public television station, will cease operations next summer. The station blamed federal and state funding cuts for the decision.
  • It’s been a schizophrenic week for DoBetterDNVR, the controversial organization that either (depending on your political persuasion) held Denver accountable for its public safety failures or that posted sensational images of people experiencing homelessness and using drugs. The group’s Twitter/X and Instagram accounts were deactivated Monday, with the anonymous leader of the organization saying they “no longer want to be involved in the public, political arena.” Then, Thursday, the accounts were restored, with a message that DoBetterDNVR would “re-engage,” but with a stronger focus on being “accurate and constructive.”
  • Do you have an elementary school student whom you’d like attend an Ivy League college? Good news! Over the next 16 years, the number of high school seniors in the U.S. will decline by 13%, a trend caused by lower birth rates. Experts say that will result in even elite universities becoming slightly less selective, but could also put hundreds of small liberal arts schools at risk of closing.
  • Cleveland Guardians pinch hitter David Fry was hospitalized after being struck in the face by a 99 mph fastball.
  • Virginia Culver, a reporter who spent 44 years at The Denver Post mostly covering religion, passed away died. She was 84.

Who won the week?

  • Vail Resorts promoted Sara Olson to VP of Resort Marketing & Global Communications.
  • Hogan Lovells promoted Cari Bayens to Senior Marketing & Business Development Manager of Energy & Environment.
  • The City of Colorado Springs named Jason Strickland as its Chief Communications Officer. Strickland, a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army, formerly was the Chief Communications Officer for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Rocky Mountain Network.
  • Zero Motorcycles, the maker of electric bikes, selected Carbondale-based Backbone as its PR agency of record.
  • The Colorado Rockies eked out enough wins this season to barely avoid setting the MLB record for most losses in a season.
  • In what had to have been one of the most difficult moments of her life, Erika Kirk, the widow of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, reminded the country what grace and compassion look like when she delivered his eulogy.
  • Jimmy Kimmel‘s return to ABC following his suspension attracted 6.26 million viewers, more than four times his usual audience. Another 21 million viewers watched his monologue on his show’s YouTube channel.
  • The five-year stock return of such market stars as Nvidia, Palantir, Microsoft and Oracle trail a decidedly less-flashy company – Build-a-Bear Workshop. The stuffed animal company’s stock is up 2,000 percent over the past five years, in part due to adult collectors.

Who Had the Worst Week?

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  • Evergreen High School is the latest Colorado school to experience gun violence. There have been 13 school shootings in our state since Columbine in 1999.
  • Conservative political activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at a college event in Utah. The assassination follows the politically motivated murder of Minnesota State House Speaker Melissa Hortman (D) three months ago, and has sparked fears on both sides of the aisle that political violence will continue to escalate.
  • Variety, CNBC, the Associated Press and other news outlets fell victim to Howard Stern when they reported that radio personality and TV host Andy Cohen was replacing Stern at SiriusXM. Stern had been in lengthy and contentious negotiations with SiriusXM, and Cohen opened what would normally be the Stern show by announcing that he was replacing Stern with his new show, “Andy 100.”
  • Fall temperatures in Denver have risen 3.7 degrees over the past 50 years, impacting everything from demands on the electrical grid to.seasonal allergies.
  • CBS, pathologically afraid of the Trump administration, has named Kenneth R. Weinstein as ombudsman to review complaints about CBS News. Weinstein formerly was head of a right-leaning think tank and has no experience overseeing news coverage.
  • Britain removed its ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, after the release of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein‘s “birthday book” showed the depth of the relationship between the two.
  • Nepal has lifted a social-media ban after at least 19 people were killed in clashes between protesters and police.
  • Two Cornell University students killed a 120-pound black bear and brought the carcass back to their dorm where they skinned and butchered the remains. The two students had valid hunting licenses and did not break any laws, but still … worst dorm neighbors ever.
  • Texas A&M fired an English literature professor over course content related to gender identity. A student protested that the lecture was “illegal” due to an executive order issued by the Trump administration. The university also removed the head of the university’s English department and a dean from their posts due to the incident.
  • The parent company of KUNC, the NPR affiliate for Northern Colorado, cut more than one-quarter of its employees – 10 total – following Congress‘ decision to defund public media.

Who won the week?

  • Former Cory Gardner staffer and GBSM alumnus Sam Stookesberry has launched his own agency, Highline Strategic Communications.
  • The Denver Voice is co-hosting a panel discussion on the state of nonprofit journalism tomorrow. It will feature Laura Frank, executive director of the Colorado News Collaborative; Tim Regan-Porter, CEO of the Colorado Press Association; Dana Coffield, co-founder and editor of the The Colorado Sun; and Mark Horvath, the founder of Invisible People.
  • The Denver Broncos selected the Burnham Yard area of Denver – about a mile southeast of Empower Field – as the home of a new stadium for the team.
  • Oracle announced stunningly positive financial results that sent it stock up 36% in a single day. That increase propelled founder Larry Ellison‘s net worth past Elon Musk to make him the richest person in the world.

Who Had the Worst Week?

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  • It’s official: Nexstar, the owner of Denver‘s Fox31 and CW2, is acquiring Tegna, the owner of 9News. So will Nexstar relegate 9News to the same second-tier role as CW2? It makes my head hurt, but that is one potential outcome suggested by Inside the News in Colorado‘s Corey Hutchins. By the way, Corey’s newsletter is a must-read for anyone in Colorado‘s journalism and public relations industries. You can subscribe for free.
  • Watchmaker Swatch issued an apology and pulled an ad campaign that featured images of a male Asian model pulling the corners of his eyes up and backwards in what critics called a derogatory “slanted eye” pose.
  • President Donald Trump has threatened Colorado with unnamed “harsh measures!!!” – using three exclamation points, so you know he means it – if Gov. Jared Polis doesn’t immediately pardon election conspiracist and felon Tina Peters. President Trump posted online: “Let Tina Peters out of jail, RIGHT NOW. She did nothing wrong, except catching the Democrats cheat in the Election. She is an old woman, and very sick. If she is not released, I am going to take harsh measures!!!”
  • Walmart has recalled frozen shrimp in 13 states due to radioactive contamination.
  • A few years ago, ESPN was trumpeting its business relationship with former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick‘s production company. This week, it withdrew from a collaboration with Kaepernick and filmmaker Spike Lee on a docuseries about Kaepernick’s banishment from the NFL for speaking out on social justice issues. I wonder what changed over the past couple of years?
  • Cracker Barrel enthusiasts are accusing the company’s new logo of being “woke” and the always-helpful Donald Trump, Jr. used his X account to suggest that the company’s new brand is linked to its inclusive hiring practices. Meanwhile, Steak ‘n Shake, lays hanging around the brink of bankruptcy, has decided that this is another opportunity to try to ingratiate itself into MAGA culture by trolling Cracker Barrel.
  •  A volunteer adviser to Democratic New York Mayor Eric Adams “has been suspended from his reelection campaign after she handed a journalist an envelope of cash stuffed inside a bag of potato chips.” Now questions are being raised about whether this is a standard Adams practice with Chinese-language media.
  • With temperatures in the high 90s this week, Denver Public Schools was forced to close 13 of its schools due to extreme heat. The first week of June typically is in the high 70s to low 80s. Maybe time to think about pushing the school year back a few weeks into June?
  • MSNBC is rebranding as MS NOW following NBCUniversal’s decision to spin off its cable assets.
  • Newsmax has agreed to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems for $67 million. That is a lot, but not nearly as much as the $788 million Fox agreed to pay for making similar false election-rigging claims.
  • James Dobson, the founder of Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family that helped position the city as the cultural center of far-right religious politics, died at the age of 89.
  • Fun fact: “The White Lotus,” “The Wire,” “The Walking Dead” and “Game of Thrones” are among the televisions shows banned in Russia. Homosexual relationships and poking fun at Vladimir Putin appear to be two gig reasons shows get banned.
  • Ari Shapiro, host of NPR‘s “All Things Considered” who will be honored as the Denver Press Club‘s annual Damon Runyon Award winner in October, will depart the network in late September. He is the latest highly visible NPR employee to leave since Congress stripped federal funding from public broadcasters.

Who won the week?

  • Adams State softball player Emily Sauvageau auctioned the Shohei Ohtani home run ball she caught – the 300th of his career – for $44,322.
  • Note: “Who Had the Worst Week?” will be taking the next couple of weeks off for vacation. See you in September.

Who Had the Worst Week?

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  • Former Colorado Public Radio host and reporter Vic Vela announced he has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. The diagnosis is the latest challenge for Vela, who has been open about his struggles with drug addiction and living with HIV.
  • The post-COVID hangover, ongoing rider safety concerns and an ill-advised attempt to be all things to all commuting people has caused RTD‘s ridership numbers to continue to drop. The first half of this year saw a 6% ridership decline over the first half of last year.
  • When fighting a losing battle, some participants will invoke the “Aiken Formula” by simply declaring victory and going home. The Salvation Army appears to have done just that when it announced it had informed the City and County of Denver that it would no longer manage three city homeless shelters next year. The rub: Denver had already notified the Salvation Army that its proposal to run the three shelters had been rejected in favor of other candidates.
  • Here’s a headline that wouldn’t have seemed plausible 20 years ago but today makes you think, “Yeah, that checks out…” – “Man charged with felony assault for throwing a sandwich at an immigration agent was a DOJ employee.“
  • It was a tough week in the sports world:
  • Denver City Council members are not impressed with DIA‘s proposed feasibility study of small nuclear reactors to power the airport.
  • There are about 1.5 million reasons that this is not “The Official PR Blog of the Denver Broncos.”
  • Neighbors of an abandoned landmark home on Denver‘s historic 7th Avenue Parkway are staging a “poop protest” by throwing their dogs’ used poop bags onto the front steps.
  • President Donald Trump‘s jealousy of former President Barack Obama‘s Nobel Peace Prize is well known, and President Trump dropped a not-so-subtle quid pro quo request for one during a tariff conversation with Norway‘s finance minister.
  • New financial penalties levied against the University of Michigan by the NCAA for the school’s sign-stealing scandal could cost it as much as $30 million.
  • No new details have emerged following The Wall Street Journal‘s report last week that Nexstar, the owner of Fox31 and CW2, is negotiating to acquire Tegna, the owner of 9News. FCC media ownership rules prevent a single company from owning two of the “Big Four” networks (NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox) in any single market, but analysts suspect that the current FCC would change that rule if it were challenged. If Nexstar owned Fox31, CW2 and 9News, it is likely that a number of positions would be eliminated, including news directors, assignment editors, digital producers, engineering staff, marketing staff, creative services and back-up reporters and meteorologists, among others.
  • Bad news, Luddites. AOL announced it will discontinue its dial-up internet service effective Sept. 30. Maybe put on some acid-washed jeans and take a moment to pour out a Zima in honor of the OG of the internet.
  • I shared the results of the recent PRSA Colorado Gold Pick awards last week, but it turns out that the information provided to me was incomplete. Using the highly scientific Denver PR Blog formula (3 points for the Grand Gold Pick, 2 points for Gold Picks, 1 point for Silver Picks), the following were the agency winners:
    • Schroderhaus – 10 points
    • Sidecar PR – 8 points
    • Linhart PR – 7 points
    • Barefoot PR – 3 points
    • CIG – 3 points
    • Jumel PR – 2 points
    • Philosophy Communications – 2 points
    • ETPR – 1 point
    • Prim – 1 point
    • Root Marketing & PR – 1 point
    • Metropolitan State University was the big overall winner of the night, including winning the PRSA Colorado Grand Gold Pick award for its campaign, “Simulating the Future of Healthcare.” It also won four additional Gold Picks, and barely edged Schroderhaus with 11 points.
    • My apologies to Schroderhaus, Linhart and Metro State for shortchanging their scores on the first version.

Who won the week?

Who Had theWorst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ 1 Comment
  • ESPN has officially cut ties with media analyst and former Denver Bronco Shannon Sharpe two weeks after he settled a lawsuit accusing him of rape. ESPN had previously suspended Sharpe when the lawsuit was filed.
  • If your favorite DUI defense or class-action attorney seemed a little giddy this week, its because a packaging mix-up caused highly alcoholic High Noon vodka seltzers to be distributed in decidedly non-alcoholic Celsius Astro Vibe energy drink cans.
  • An undetermined number of Denver city employees will begin receiving layoff notices on Aug. 18 as the city tries to close a $250 million budget gap.
  • The City and County of Denver, which has thrown some pretty sharp elbows in the past to retain the annual National Western Stock Show, has green-lighted a $3 million campaign encouraging city residents to eat less meat. That sound you just heard was the marketing team at the Aurora-based Gaylord Hotel sketching out details for an on-site arena.
  • Some bad news for local home-sellers. Denver led the nation in price cuts on for-sale listings in June, indicating that sellers are getting nervous and that buyers may hold the upper hand.
  • U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum officials may be approaching the facility’s fifth anniversary, but lower-than-expected attendance figures and declining year-over-year revenue are putting a damper on the celebration.
  • Fox31 had a weird non-story about the executive chef at Guard and Grace leaving on amicable terms.
  • The state of Colorado sued PetSmart, accusing the national pet store chain of tricking employees into enrolling in a “free” dog grooming school that locked them into a form of indentured servitude.
  • The annual Dragon Boat Festival may need to leave Denver due to “dead fish, increasingly warm and shallow water, blue algae blooms, and a lack of filtration from untreated runoff” pouring into Sloan’s Lake.
  • A 50% drop in ratings, the rising cost of materials needed for home renovations and DIY TikTokers have forced HGTV to cut costs and dump at least seven of its shows.
  • After days of rumors swirling online, The Denver Post outed three of the contributors to the DoBetterDENVR social media account, and they couldn’t back-pedal fast enough from its content that many have described as cruel to people experiencing drug addiction and homelessness. Two of the three don’t even live in Colorado.
    • (Speaking of rumors, when will the highly anticipated Colorado Public Radio story on the staff turnover and work culture at the Denver Metro Chamber finally appear?)

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

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  • Gov. Jared Polis has done the impossible. He united all of Colorado – rural, urban, suburban, Democrats, Republicans and independents. When his $28 million legacy bridge proposal faced massive public criticism, he put it to a public vote, and a staggering 94% of voters were against it.
  • On the campaign trail and once in office, Colorado Congressman Gabe Evans has used what he said was his grandfather’s lawful entry in the United States as justification for deporting those here illegally. Chase Woodruff at Colorado Newsline dug into the paperwork, though, and discovered Evans’ story is not true – records show his grandfather entered the country illegally at age 5 and was arrested for burglary at age 16.
  • The 76 Group‘s Jeff Small is wracking up a string of embarrassing media coverage for his firm ranging from trying to convince county clerks to do the same thing that got Tina Peters nine years in jail (none agreed) to conducting a “shakedown” of county commissioners trying to get off President Donald Trump‘s “sanctuary jurisdictions” list.
  • Speaking of President Donald Trump, he reverting to his habit of elevating cultural issues when he is threatened by challenges such as his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and is now threatening to sabotage a stadium deal for the NFL‘s Washington Commanders if they do not restore the team’s old name, the Redskins.
  • Former Colorado state Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis is facing felony charges for allegedly forging letters of support that were submitted to investigators looking into allegations she mistreated legislative aides.
  • Employees at The Dallas Morning News are anxiously awaiting to see if Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund owners who are destroying The Denver Post, will acquire the paper.
  • Eleven of King Charles‘ 12 gardeners at his Highgrove estate quit over because of what they say is a toxic workplace environment. I bet King Henry VIII never had that problem.
  • A Little Leaguer who was suspended from the New Jersey state final after a bat-flip celebration that an umpire thought was excessive won a court order allowing him to play. Who says youth sports don’t teach kids life skills?
  • If you have a Gen-Xer in your life, give them a hug. It was a tough week for celebrities who arguably peaked in the 1980s:
    • Malcolm-Jamal Warner, best known for playing the lovable and charismatic son Theo on “The Cosby Show,” drowned while on vacation in Costa Rica at the age of 54.
    • Ozzy Osbourne, the heavy metal singer who fronted Black Sabbath before making it on his own, and who became a mainstream sensation with his reality television show “The Osbournes,” passed away at the age of 76.
    • “Hulk Hogan, the mustachioed, headscarf-wearing icon in the world of professional wrestling,” died at the age of 71.
    • And I’ll add Chuck Mangione to the list because while his musical career peaked in the 1970s, his cultural relevance may have peaked in the late 1990s and early 2000s with his cameos on “King of the Hill” as the trumpeter whose every song – “Taps,” “Star-Spangled Banner,” etc. – transitions slowly into his 1977 hit, “Feels So Good.” He passed away at the age of 84.
  • A photograph of a police officer escorting a handcuffed Chuck E. Cheese mascot out of a Tallahassee, Fla., location while stunned children watched went viral. He was still wearing his costume head when police arrested him for credit card fraud.

Who won the week?

  • The Colorado Rockies drafted Ethan Holliday, the son of Rockies legend Matt Holliday, with the fourth overall pick in the MLB amateur draft. Holliday received a $9 million signing bonus, a record for a player drafted out of high school.
  • Denver‘s homicide rate has dropped to a 10-year low, and credit is being given to better staffing, smarter enforcement strategies, strategic community partnerships and tougher gun laws.
  • A one-of-a-kind Caitlin Clark rookie card sold for $600,000, setting an all-time record for the most expensive women’s sports card.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

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  • Boulder Weekly appears to be in a death spin after the owners fired the editor and the entire reporting staff. Curiously, the owners retained the special projects manager and bookkeeper.
  • There are 75% fewer reporters working in the U.S. today compared to 2002. That stunning stat came from a Muck Rack and Rebuild Local News analysis that also found that one in three counties across the country do not have “the equivalent of even one full-time local journalist.”
  • Former Denver Nuggets President Tim Leiweke helped make Ball Arena a reality and is known for making other high-profile sports venue projects happen. What’s his secret? I don’t know, but in other news Leiweke was indicted for conspiracy to rig the bidding process for a venue at University of Texas at Austin. If convicted, he is probably hoping for home confinement rather than prison because he bought a 10,000-square-foot, $7.2 million home in Cherry Creek a couple of months ago.
  • The dust has settled on the historically bad Colorado Rockies‘ promotion of Walker Monfort, son of the team’s owner, to executive vice president, and the consensus is that more Monfort is not what the team needs. Troy Renck of The Denver Post said, “They need to repo the franchise, not a nepo hire” and the Denver Gazette‘s Mark Kiszla noted, “Born on third base, can Walker…find [his] way home, much less to first place in the National League West? Don’t bet on it.” 
  • If you are looking for a stock to short, BarkBox is hiring a “Chairdog” to make company decisions via a telepathic communicator. The dog will report to the CEO and make product-related decisions.
  • University of Denver faculty have issued a vote of “no confidence” in Chancellor Jeremy Haefner. “Financial management, shared governance and the future vision for the university” were cited as some of the reasons for the vote.
  • Red Rocks concertgoers got more than they bargained for when a couple of bears roamed the venue at a Russ concert this week.
  • The WNBA is facing an officiating crisis that is undermining the integrity of the league, and superstars such as Kelsey Plum and Angel Reese are among the players expressing frustration.
  • Ted Cruz, the U.S. senator from Texas, has a knack for making bad decisions during natural disasters. You may recall in 2021 when he left the state for Cancun, Mexico, amid a devastating cold snap that left millions without heat. This week, he reportedly delayed returning to Texas from a vacation in Greece following the deadly floods so he could tour the Parthenon.
  • The co-op board responsible for approving the sale of a New York City apartment once owned by Babe Ruth rejected social media influencer and collegiate gymnast Olivia Dunne‘s bid. Co-op boards are notoriously tough on celebrities who may draw paparazzi, and Dunne joins others such as Madonna, Mariah Carey and Calvin Klein whose bids to own apartments have been rejected.
  • It is hard to imagine anyone willingly having their brand associated with the dumpster fire that is the Colorado Rockies, but Denver-based aerospace and defense technology company York Space Systems inked a six-year deal to have the company’s logo on the team’s uniforms.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

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  • A postal carrier who stole, filled out and submitted 19 mail ballots as part of a rogue plan to test the security of Colorado‘s signature verification process was sentenced to five years in jail. The scheme was identified when election officials contacted alleged voters whose signatures did not match and learned they had not submitted ballots.
  • University of Colorado Regent Wanda James and her colleagues are using The Denver Post‘s editorial page to fight over a board investigation that could lead to her censure.
  • The U.S. Navy stripped former San Francisco Mayor Harvey Milk‘s name from one of its vessels. Milk was a U.S. Navy veteran and the first openly gay man to be elected to office in California. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth justified the decision by saying, “People want to be proud of the ship they are sailing in.”
  • Jake Rosencranz, a University of Denver alum who worked in Denver at the Behm Consulting Group, was struck by lightning and killed while on his honeymoon in Florida.
  • Two U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team players – Weston McKennie and Tim Weah – who play professionally with Juventus in Italy have caused an uproar by alleging that the country’s food is boring and lacks variety.
  • What appeared to be an off-the-cuff comment in a press conference from Denver Nuggets Vice Chairman Josh Kroenke about the potential to trade MVP Nicola Jokić serves as a reminder of how careful and prepared executives need to be when speaking to the media. The throwaway comment completely overshadowed the intention of the press conference, which was to introduce the team’s new co-GMs.
  • Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and journalist Lauren Sanchez‘s wedding this weekend had to be relocated to a more secure venue after residents of Venice, Italy, threatened to crash it. If you are still looking for a gift for the couple, $2,000 is the largest gift card Amazon offers.
  • Elon Musk fired Tesla‘s head of North American and European operations following a prolonged sales slump, as if that guy was the problem.
  • Brad Pitt‘s Los Angeles home was ransacked and robbed while he was away promoting a new movie.
  • Microsoft has updated its infamous “blue screen of death” to a new-and-improved black version. Maybe the engineers instead could have focused on eliminating the bugs that cause it in the first place?
  • President Donald Trump‘s new cell phone venture, Trump Mobile, quickly pulled the coverage map from its website when critics noticed that it included the “Gulf of Mexico” rather than the “Gulf of America.”
  • Gov. Jared Polis‘ desire to build a legacy project in the form of a $30 million bridge to connect the state capitol to Lincoln Park has hit a snag in the form of 9News’ Kyle Clark. The most influential media figure in town has been on a crusade to kill the project, even spending a six-minute block of his “Next with Kyle Clark” show on a commentary criticizing every aspect of the plan.

Who won the week?

  • PRSA Colorado announced the winner of its 2025 awards:
    • Doug Hock, longtime oil-and-gas communications executive, won the Lifetime Achievement award.
    • Jennifer Quermann, senior director of Communications and Marketing at the Butterfly Pavilion, won the PR Person of the Year award.
    • Walker Shumock-Bailey, marketing coordinator at A Little Help, won the Rookie of the Year award.
    • Jake Kasowski, managing supervisor at FleishmanHillard, won the Chapter Service award.
    • Jason Evans, communications manager at FlatironDragados, won the Mentor of the Year award.
    • Rosalind “Bee” Harris, publisher of the Denver Urban Spectrum, won the Outstanding Business Leader award.
    • Tina Griego, senior editor at the ProPublica Local Reporting Network, won the Media Professional of the Year award.
  • Reporter Nicky Andrews announced she is leaving the Boulder Daily Camera/Longmont Times-Call. No word yet on where she will land.
  • Metro State, a longtime commuter campus, has unveiled plans to build its first on-campus residence hall, a $118 million project that will house 550 students.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ 1 Comment
  • Boulder‘s Comprise PR, formerly MAPR and Metzger before that, has shut down following a bankruptcy filing. Owner Doyle Albee had hoped to reorganize and survive the filing, but he said that former employees who poached clients had made that impossible. Albee and most of the remaining employees are moving to California-based Hawke Media, which touts its “10 years of marketing domination.”
  • The crash of an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London killed at least 269 people. It is India’s worst aviation disaster in decades.  
  • Journalist Terry Moran is out at ABC News after he tweeted that top White House aide Stephen Miller is a “world-class hater” whose “hatreds are his spiritual nourishment.” Because truth is an absolute defense against defamation claims, ABC News doesn’t need to worry about a lawsuit, but they nonetheless wanted to stay on President Donald Trump‘s good side.
  • Conservatives weren’t happy several years ago when major brands declined to advertise on Twitter/X for political reasons, so much so that the FTC is trying to include a prohibition on that as a formal requirement for approving a merger between marketing conglomerates Omnicom and Interpublic Group.
  • Miami-Dade police are searching for oft-troubled former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown on a charge of attempted murder. Brown was allegedly involved in a shooting during a celebrity boxing event in Miami last month.
  • Former Denver Public Schools board member Auon’tai Anderson continues to harbor delusions of grandeur. Two years ago, he was censured for flirting with a 16-year-old student and he then declined to run for re-election after polls found that he had the support of only 9% of respondents. So, of course, this week, Anderson teased a possible run to rejoin the board, perhaps in 2027.
  • University of Colorado football coach Deion Sanders is dealing with an unspecified health issue that has caused him to miss the team’s annual summer football camps. There is no announced timeframe for his return.
  • FIFA introduced dynamic pricing for tickets to this summer’s inaugural Club World Cup that will take place in the U.S., and it is not going well. Tickets for the opening match between Inter Miami (featuring soccer superstar Lionel Messi) and Egyptian team Al-Ahly are going for as little as $4.
  • The Dyson bandits – two brothers who stole nearly $30,000 worth Dyson vacuum cleaners and other items from Denver-area Targets and resold them – have been sentenced to a combined 10 years in prison.
  • The Denver City Council has authorized another $400,000 in settlement payments to protesters injured by police during the George Floyd protests in 2020. The latest payment means that Denver has now paid nearly $20 million in settlements to protesters injured that summer.
  • If you had actress Olivia Munn and children’s YouTuber Ms. Rachel in a blood feud, well, you are more prescient than I am. It’s gotten so bad that People magazine had to remove an online article about them because of the violent threats it triggered.
  • City engineers have warned city council members that two bridges in Denver may soon be off limits to ambulances and other heavy vehicles due to deteriorating conditions. What’s worse is the two bridges are located within blocks of Denver Health.
  • If you are from the Pacific Northwest, there’s at least a decent chance you are a serial killer.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • God may forgive, but the IRS doesn’t. Which is bad news for Pope Leo because U.S. tax law says he may owe annual $135,000 payments to the U.S. Treasury.
  • The jockey of Kentucky Derby-winning horse Sovereignty was fined $62,000 for whipping his horse too many times down the stretch during the iconic race. If you are curious about the allowable number of times you can whip a horse during a Derby, it is six.
  • Two years after taking lighter fluid and a match to billions of dollars in brand equity by dropping the name HBO from its streaming service, executives at Warner Bros. Discovery have announced that Max will now be rebranded back to HBO Max. HBO is synonymous with prestigious programming (“The Sopranos,” “The Wire,” “Succession,” “Veep,” “Euphoria,” etc.), and I can only assume the same people who dropped HBO in the first place are the same marketing geniuses who named the parent company Warner Bros. Discovery.
  • A Consumer Reports investigation found that King Soopers is overcharging Colorado customers nearly 20% compared to the prices that are listed on the shelves.
  • The nonprofit National Trust for Local News is selling 14 of its 21 community papers in Colorado — including the Arvada Press, the Englewood Herald and the Littleton Independent — to Arizona-based media company Times Media Group. The Nieman Foundation calls The Times Media Group an “out-of-state, for-profit media company with a history of reducing local newsrooms.” Corey Hutchins has a deep dive into the news at his “Inside the News in Colorado” Substack.
  • Nissan announced plans to lay off 11,000 workers globally, and Microsoft is laying off 6,000 people, or about 3% of its workforce.
  • DIA joined the ranks of airports nationally that have experienced brief communications outages that prevented air traffic controllers from communicating with pilots. Enjoy your summer vacations!
  • I suspected that Gérard Depardieu was a skeevy perv ever since the first time I saw him in “Cyrano De Bergerac.” It took 35 years to be proven right, but a French court this week found him guilty of sexually assaulting two women.
  • Following encampment protests of the war in Gaza last year, the Colorado Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights plans to spend the next year investigating Denver’s Auraria campus to determine whether antisemitism exists on the downtown campus.
  • The University of North Carolina has hired a former NFL PR expert to help head football coach Bill Belichick. Here’s hoping the guy’s first piece of advice to Belichick is to stop talking about his girlfriend who is 50 years younger than he is. The second piece: he better win a lot of football games quickly to help change the subject.
  • DIA CEO Phil Washington is playing defense explaining how he and eight of his colleagues spent $165,000 on a trip to a a three-day conference in Madrid.
  • The NWSL acknowledged it should have postponed the remaining part of a recent game between Angel City and Utah after an Angel City player collapsed on the field and was taken to the hospital via ambulance.
  • Colorado Republicans are plotting a comeback in our state, and part of that path now includes a gala event hosted by Heidi Ganahl (who lost her 2022 gubernatorial race to Gov. Jared Polis by 19 points) and featuring … Eric Trump. There’s a “definition of insanity” thing that makes me think Heidi Ganahl and Eric Trump are hardly the best advocates for Republicans to “take back Colorado.”
  • Morris, the alligator from the movie “Happy Gilmore,” passed away in Colorado. He was approximately 80 years old.
  • You missed your chance to buy the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. It sold for $400 million.

Who won the week?

  • Longtime 9News journalist Tom Green announced he is stepping down from the station after 43 years in Denver. Green is arguably the funniest journalist in town, albeit in an under-the-radar way.
  • The Denver Nuggets forced a game 7 in its series against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Not bad for a team that fired its head coach and GM three games before the end of the regular season.
  • Pete Rose, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and host of other baseball outcasts have been made re-eligible for the baseball Hall of Fame. They still have to be voted in, though, which is unlikely.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • Actor Rob Lowe was not amused when a Beverly Hills sightseeing tour bus driver pointed him out to passengers as “John Stamos.” Lowe, who was on a sidewalk near Rodeo Drive, confronted the driver of the open-air bus and told him he needed to “Get better at your job.”
  • Tesla is facing legal allegations that it speeds up the odometers on its electric vehicles so they fall out of warranty faster.
  • Actor Kelsey Grammer‘s plans to raze a 200-year-old cottage in Bristol, England has outraged locals. He wants to build a four-bedroom modern home.
  • The drummer for the band New Pornographers was arrested on child pornography charges.
  • Former members of the University of Colorado football team aren’t impressed by coach Deion Sanders‘ plans to retire the number of QB Shedeur Sanders. The alumni agree with Coach Prime‘s decision to retire Heisman trophy winner Travis Hunter‘s number, but are annoyed that he has used that as an opportunity to retire his son’s number as well.
  • If you had Wendy’s vs. Katy Perry in the celebrity feud pool, you are smarter than I am. The burger chain is playing defense after its social media team poked fun at the singer for joining the all-female crew that went to space. The backlash came from celebrities Emily Ratajkowski, Olivia Wilde and Olivia Munn, and forced the brand to backtrack slightly by claiming it has a “ton of respect” for Perry.
  • The production of craft beer fell to 23.1 million barrels in 2024, which represents a 4% decline compared to the previous year and is the largest non-pandemic drop in industry history. That is not a good statistic for Colorado, which has the fourth most craft breweries in the country.
  • United Airlines took the unusual step of issuing two different profit outlooks for 2025 – one that assumes a recession and a second that doesn’t.
  • It is starting to feel little like Groundhog Day in Colorado politics. Former U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo (D) announced she will run to try to reclaim CD-8, while former U.S. Rep. Greg Lopez (R) announced he will run for governor for a third time. He didn’t win the primary race in either of his first two attempts.
  • President Donald Trump was no fan of the latest episode of “60 Minutes” that featured stories on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the territory of Greenland. He called on the FCC to revoke CBS’s broadcast license “for their unlawful and illegal behavior” airing stories he did not like.
  • Speaking of President Trump, he is also at war with Harvard University after it refused to acquiesce to his demands on a variety of issues. President Trump froze $2.2 billion in grant funding and then asked the IRS to revoke its tax-exempt status as punishment for defying him.
  • You don’t really think about competitive fishing as a particularly dangerous sport, but three people died when two boats collided during a fishing tournament in Alabama.
  • Actor Haley Joel Osment was arrested and charged with public intoxication and possession of cocaine.
  • All 1.4 million residents of Puerto Rico are again without power as the island suffered its second catastrophic blackout in four months.
  • A judge in Florida said she was powerless to release an American citizen born in Georgia who was detained as a suspected undocumented immigrant. ICE had moved the prisoner to a detention center and the judge said while she had the power to dismiss the charge, she did not have jurisdiction to force his release.

Who won the week?

  • DIA ranked as the third busiest airport in the U.S. and sixth busiest in the world in 2024.
  • Fourteen Coloradans landed on Forbes‘ list of the world’s richest billionaires. Phil Anschutz was first among Coloradans with $16.9 billion, while Cargill MacMillan III ($1.4 billion) had the most billionaire-ish name.
  • ESPN‘s Lee Corso announced he would retire from “College Gameday,” where he built a cult following by predicting winners by donning the team mascot’s head. Corso is 89 and has been part of the show for 38 years.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ 1 Comment
  • A United Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai was forced to return to the U.S. two hours into the flight when one of the pilots realized he had forgotten to bring his passport. A new crew was brought in and the flight took off again six hours after its initial departure.
  • What do you get when you put librarians in charge of doing math? A $25.4 million estimate for an open-records request. The Pikes Peak Library District in El Paso County gave a journalist the $25.4 million estimate that calculated it would take 613,440 hours to complete, the equivalent of a team of five people working full-time for 59 years.
  • The genetic testing company 23andMe has filed for bankruptcy, meaning that its DNA registry containing sensitive information on millions of people could be bought for pennies on the dollar by bad actors. California‘s attorney general issued a rare consumer privacy alert reminding residents that they have the option to direct the company to delete their data and destroy any samples of genetic material it holds prior to any sale.
  • Don’t delay that vacation: Hawaii is sinking 40 times faster than scientists initially thought.
  • It was quite a week for the White House:
  • The live-action remake of “Snow White” is on pace to be one of the biggest flops of the decade, even bigger than “Joker: Folie à Deux.” At the heart of the debacle: a series of self-inflicted wounds.
  • A jury ordered the makers of the Roundup weed killer to pay $2.1 billion in damages to a plaintiff who argued the product caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer. Appeals courts have reduced previous large jury awards against Roundup by about 95%, which could also happen here.
  • The Colorado Rockies will play the first game of the 2025 season today, and they are already 1.5 games back from the division-leading L.A. Dodgers.
  • It is not easy being a mid-major program like the Colorado State University Rams. You want the program to do well, but when they do, you start to worry about losing players or coaches to schools in bigger conferences. That is what happened this week. Men’s basketball coach Niko Medved methodically built CSU into a team that made the NCAA “March Madness” tournament regularly, and his team gave one of the all-time great performances in a last-second loss to the University of Maryland. And then, less than 24 hours later, the University of Minnesota hired Medved away.
  • It has been a tough couple of weeks for the Denver arts and business communities. First, we lost former Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation CEO Tom Clark, who was a behind-the-scenes driving force for many of Denver’s biggest accomplishments over the past few decades. And, this week, the family and friends of Denver Botanic Gardens CEO Brian Vogt are mourning his passing. He was 66.

Who won the week?

  • GFM|CenterTable added Shelbey Royal as a senior director of search.
  • Connect For Health Colorado named Nina Schwartz as its new chief policy and external affairs officer.
    • Turner PR has been named agency of record for Xanterra Travel Collection. Turner will handle earned media and social media strategy for the company’s National Parks collection, including accommodations, experiences and outposts in the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Death Valley, Glacier, Rocky Mountain and Mount Rushmore.
  • The Sundance Film Festival is relocating from Park City, Utah, to Boulder. Fun fact: The New York Times article covering the news first described Boulder as a “ski town,” which it is not, and then issued a correction calling it a “mountain town,” which it also is not. We’ll see if a second correction appears.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • Tesla issued a recall for 46,000 Cybertrucks – nearly every one it has produced – due to a risk that its stainless steel panels can fall off. It’s been a tough year for Tesla. Between increasing competition for electric cars in China and Elon Musk‘s embrace of President Donald Trump, the company’s stock has dropped more than 50% over the past four months.
  • We experienced an annual rite of spring last weekend when the best team left out of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament started complaining about how unfair the process is. This year, West Virginia has that (dis)honor, and the state’s governor held a press conference announcing he had directed the state attorney general to launch an investigation into the selection committee.
  • Employees who work at the Cherry Creek Shopping Center are not happy that the mall plans to start charging them $20 per month for parking.
  • Uber-progressive ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s has been a thorn in the side of its uptight corporate parent Unilever for the past couple of decades, but the war in Gaza – combined with the current boycott culture – has amplified their conflict. Unilever announced it would spin Ben & Jerry’s off by the end of this year, but that hasn’t stopped the conglomerate from trying to kick the ice cream maker one final time. This week, Unilever fired Ben & Jerry’s CEO despite its continued strong financial performance.
  • The NHL was minding its own business when it learned from media reports that it had become a bargaining chip between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. What could go wrong?
  • ICE has been having a hard enough time reaching its quota for arresting undocumented immigrants, and now it is having to arrest some of them twice. Two of its detainees held in a secure facility in Aurora escaped during a power outage.
  • What could you possibly say about an oil company that would cause $667 million in damages? I don’t know, but that is what a jury in North Dakota has ordered Greenpeace to pay to the one that operates the Dakota Access Pipeline.
  • The last time Jackie Robinson had a win this big was the 1955 World Series. Robinson posthumously defeated Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot after Ullyot defended removing an online article about Robinson’s military background to the point that even Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was uncomfortable and demoted him.
  • It’s Spring Break week for Jeffco, Cherry Creek, Douglas County and several other school districts, so say a little prayer for those who ventured to Europe for a little vacation. A fire at a nearby power substation shut down Heathrow Airport in London, throwing the schedules of international airlines into chaos. Heathrow officials claim the airport will be operating at 100% again by Saturday, but I wouldn’t count on it.
  • Friends are mourning the loss of former Rocky Mountain News reporter Norm Clarke. He was known for his must-read Herb Caen-inspired column about celebrities, politicians, sports stars and business leaders. He left Denver in 1999 for Las Vegas, where we can all agree that he had much better fodder for his columns. He was 82.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • Kanye West pulled what The Wall Street Journal called a “switcheroo” when he submitted local-market Super Bowl ads that directed people to his website that sold non-controversial apparel, and then swapped the clothing out for wildly sexist and antisemitic versions. The ads aired in markets such as Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Atlanta before the local stations realized what was going on.
  • Kid Rock threw an on-stage temper-tantrum that was posted to social media when a Nashville crowd was not clapping enthusiastically enough for his taste. “If you ain’t gonna clap, we ain’t gonna sing. That’s how it’s gonna go,” the singer told the crowd. In (probably) unrelated news, reports emerged this week that Kid Rock was seen getting into a cab at 2:30 a.m. with Colorado‘s own Rep. Lauren Boebert on inauguration night.
  • If you are hug-deprived, good news! Denver apparently has a cadre of “professional cuddlers” who can help. That’s not creepy at all.
  • Mittens the cat may have more frequent fliers miles than you do. The cat ended up making repeated trips between Australia and New Zealand when cargo unloaders overlooked her crate due to a wheelchair that had been stowed in front of it.
  • Are egg prices out of control? Thieves swiped 100,000 of them from the trailer of a semi in Pennsylvania. I doubt George Clooney or Brad Pitt will play any of the characters in the movie version of this whodunnit.
  • If you were hoping President Donald Trump would get tired and settle down a bit, it’s not looking good. This week he banned AP reporters from news conferences for not using his “Gulf of America” designation, gutted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, imposed a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum, stopped DOJ investigations into friends WWE founder Vince McMahon and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, banned eco-friendly paper straws from government buildings, appointed himself chair of the Kennedy Center (expect a lot of Lee Greenwood and Kid Rock performances), fired numerous inspector general watchdogs, furloughed 97% of the employees at USAID, and cut federal NIH medical research funding, among other things.
  • Meanwhile, President Trump‘s announcement that he wants the U.S. to stop minting pennies could hit the Denver Mint hard. The facility makes more than a billion pennies each year.
  • The Colorado legislature saw some rare bipartisan spirit this week. Unfortunately for Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis (D-Longmont), it was the Senate Ethics Committee that is investigating accusations that she was abusive toward five of her legislative aides. She did not impress her colleagues by railing against the appropriateness of an ethics investigation when she herself publicly called for one to investigate the allegations several months ago.
  • Happy Valentine’s Day! (Presumably male) researchers have found that men are actually more romantic than women. The researchers did acknowledge that, “In relationship research, ‘romanticism’ refers to general beliefs about love, rather than (actual) actions taken within romantic relationships.” So, in men’s minds, thinking about getting you flowers is basically the same thing as doing it.
  • A celebration of life was recently held for Ned High, a Denver journalist and public relations firm owner. He passed away at the age of 90.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ 1 Comment
  • The Girl Scouts of Colorado say they could lose millions of dollars in cookie sales due to the King Soopers strike. “We’re respecting the strike and the picket lines, but also being creative and really banding together and making calls and doing whatever we can to support the girls,” said Leanna Clark, CEO.
  • Six years – SIX YEARS – after a Comcast–Altitude Sports carriage dispute blacked out Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets games for most of Denver, the two companies agreed to a new television deal that reflects the terms essentially offered back in 2019. What did fans miss in those six years? Two championships and four MVPs.
  • 9News parent company TEGNA has laid off its 20-member VERIFY fact-checking team whose mission was “to stop the spread of false information.” I’d love to hear the “Next with Kyle Clark” editorial commentary on that decision.
  • Media outlets have been dismissive of President Donald Trump‘s strategy of using “deceptive advertising” claims as a legal strategy to sue media he doesn’t like (CBS, Des Moines Register, etc.), but now some First Amendment lawyers are growing concerned it could actually lead somewhere with the current U.S. Supreme Court.
  • Few Colorado school districts are taking the Denver Broncos up on their generous offer of free “smart” football helmets. Districts are concerned about potential liability and student privacy. The Broncos intended to donate more than 15,00 helmets statewide at a cost of about $12 million.
  • Karla Sofia Gascón, the first openly transgender woman to be nominated for an Oscar for best performance by an actress in a leading role, has apologized for since-deleted social media posts in which she appears to attack Muslims, George Floyd and the lack of diversity at the Oscars. She probably only needed to apologize for two of those.
  • Waffle House is charging a $0.50 surcharge per egg due to the shortage caused by an aggressive strain of the avian flu. Speaking of bird flu, you may want to stock up on milk and butter now. A new strain has started infecting dairy cows.
  • The cost to insure a car in Colorado increased 26% last year, one of the largest jumps in the nation. The biggest jump was Minnesota at 58%. Extreme weather, including hail, is driving the increase in our state.
  • Side hustles are all the rage, but the NFL cannot be happy that the president and head of communications of the New Orleans Saints have gotten caught up moonlighting in a local Catholic diocese sex abuse scandal. Emails show that team representatives may have persuaded city prosecutors to remove some names from a list of clergy members accused of abuse that was released, and the PR head gave media interview critiques to church officials.
  • Colorado could see fewer federal transportation dollars thanks to a new directive from President Donald Trump that prioritizes projects in places with high birth and marriage rates. Colorado has one of the lowest fertility rates in the country.
  • It’s been a tough few weeks for “old” Denver. First, we lost preservationist Dana Crawford and now we have lost Dan Ritchie. The impact of both on the development of Denver was immeasurable.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • Ten people are dead and nearly 200,000 people have been ordered to evacuate their homes due to wildfires in the Los Angeles area. Like the Marshall Fire in Boulder several years ago, these wildfires are fueled by high winds that are growing fires faster than firefighters can respond. The scale of the fires may impact Coloradans as insurers further evaluate their premiums in what they consider areas vulnerable to wildfires.
  • Could the Denver Broncos build a new stadium in Lone Tree? 9News reports the team is considering it.
  • The public relations team was among the hardest hit departments from recent layoffs at The Washington Post.
  • The Colorado State Patrol is walking back its initial claims that a driver involved in a New Year’s Day crash that killed two people fell asleep at the wheel. The CSP did not explain why potentially inaccurate information was released, but they did apologize to friends and families of the deceased.
  • Colorado is expensive and full, a finding underscored by the U-Haul Growth Index that ranks states by the number of people moving into vs. out of states. Colorado ranked 40th. Before you get too excited about the potential for lower rents, 50.3% of one-way U-Haul trips were out of Colorado, while 49.7% were to Colorado.
  • 9News traffic and entertainment reporter Erica Lopez is taking some time off to have a cyst removed from one of her vocal cords.
  • Denver City Auditor Tim O’Brien has spent the past decade justifying his existence by finding all manner of problems – real and imagined – with numerous city-related programs and departments. This time he has his sights on DIA, and he is threatening to conduct multiple audits if the airport doesn’t bend to his will.
  • TikTok influencers who have made a living off the social media platform are bracing for its potential ban in the United States effective Jan. 19. The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments today attempting to overturn the legislative ban.
  • States in the Southeast are getting hammered by a rare snowstorm, with cities such as Atlanta and Nashville expected to get 2-4 inches (which affects them the way 12-24 inches of snow would affect Denver – Atlanta doesn’t own very many snowplows).
  • Vince McMahon, the founder and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) agreed to pay the SEC $400,000 and reimburse the WWE $1,3 million to settle allegations that he “failed to disclose multimillion-dollar settlements he had reached with two women when he led the W.W.E.”
  • ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery abandoned plans to launch Venu, what would have been a new streaming service featuring content from each. The three announced the new network a year ago, but Fubu had sued alleging that the service was anticompetitive.

Who won the week?

  • KOSI 101 saw its ratings number nearly double in December as it made its annual month-long transition to Christmas music.
  • The University of Colorado Boulder helped launch 35 start-ups over the past fiscal year, a new record. That puts CU Boulder in very good company. For context, Stanford launched 35 start-ups and MIT launched 32.
  • The Denver Broncos are in the NFL playoffs for the first time in a decade. They play the Buffalo Bills on Sunday.

Who Had the Worst Week – 2024 Year in Review

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Once again, we learned there is no shortage of people doing stupid things. It’s like that is humanity’s superpower. Below is a stroll down memory lane as we remember some of the dumber things that happened in 2024.

JANUARY 2024

  • A Peloton instructor complained that a Christopher Nolan movie was a waste of time not knowing the director was in her class.
  • A firearms instructor with the Denver Sheriff’s Department was suspended for 14 days after accidentally shooting his neighbor’s house.
  • Boeing faced yet another public relations crisis when its 737 Max aircraft was grounded again after a side door plug blew out mid-flight on an Alaska Airlines jet.
  • Disgraced former Denver Public Schools board member Auon’tai Anderson first chose not to run for school board re-election because polls showed him with the support of only 9% of voters. Then he announced he would instead run for a state house seat. Well, it turns out those voters also recognized his name, and in January he dropped out of that race as well.
  • The L.A. Times was thrown into a state of mayhem as it laid off 115 positions – about 20% of its newsroom. Said one staffer, “I cannot overstate the level of chaos.” It was a harbinger of what was to come.

FEBRUARY 2024

MARCH 2024

  • We learned that about a dozen people who attended the bitterly cold playoff game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins suffered such severe frostbite that amputations were required. Unfortunately for Broncos fans, Patrick Mahomes was not one of them.
  • Colorado Public Radio eliminated 15 employees in its audio and podcast production departments, although the station’s newsroom was spared.
  • Comedian Nick Swardson had a melt-down on-stage in Beaver Creek that forced organizers to yank him from the stage. He blamed the effects of alcohol and edibles for his bizarre behavior.
  • Russia added the “LGBT movement” to its list of terrorists and extremists.
  • To political progressives, it must have felt like mommy and daddy were fighting. Former Colorado Public Radio host Vic Vela lawyered up and accused CPR of “belittling and mocking his mental health concerns” related to his ongoing struggles with addiction. Meanwhile, CPR contends that Vela was fired because he “demonstrated behaviors that are not in alignment with the values, culture and environment we have at CPR.”

APRIL 2024

MAY 2024

JUNE 2024

 JULY 2024

  • A Chinese company accidentally launched its prototype rocket during what was supposed to be a ground test.
  • A Washington, D.C., woman was accused of killing a man and using his severed thumb for several days to access his electronic devices to steal money from his bank account and pay for Uber rides.
  • Investment company BlackRock pulled a two-year-old viral online ad that coincidentally included footage of Thomas Crooks, the man who was killed while trying to assassinate former President Donald Trump.
  • Former Denver Bronco and Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Terrell Davis was handcuffed and removed from a United Airlines flight by FBI agents after a flight attendant alleged Davis hit him. Davis said he and witnesses to the incident were left confused because he simply tapped a flight attendant’s arm to ask for ice.
  • The Clocktower Cabaret in the basement of the Daniels & Fisher Tower on 16th Street was flooded with raw sewage during a construction mishap.

AUGUST 2024

SEPTEMBER 2024

OCTOBER 2024

NOVEMBER 2024

DECEMBER 2024

  • Edelman announced it is laying off 330 employees as it navigates what it expects to be an 8% decline in revenue in 2024.
  • The CEO of UnitedHealthcare was shot and killed while arriving at an investor conference Manhattan. After a five-day manhunt, the alleged shooter is found in Altoona, Pa. wearing essentially the same clothes and mask, and still carrying the murder weapon. DB Cooper, he is not.
  • The Morrison Police Department, most known for running the most brazen speed traps in the state, has disbanded. 
  • Albertsons officially ended its merger agreement with Kroger after federal and state rulings against it, ending what would have been the largest supermarket acquisition in U.S. history. Albertsons then sued Kroger for breach of contract and accused it of failing to exercise its “best efforts” to get regulatory approval.
  • Consulting firm McKinsey & Co. will pay $650 million to resolve a U.S. DOJ investigation into its work advising opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma on how to boost sales.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Who won the week?

  • Erin Rist has accepted the position as Director of Marketing and Development at BGOLDN.
  • Denver‘s Turner PR been reappointed as the PR agency of record for the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism.
  • Publicis Groupe, which owns PR agencies MSL and Kekst CNC, saw organic revenue increase 5.8% in Q3. And Omnicom Group increased its organic revenue 4.3% in Q3.
  • Ent Credit Union has signed Denver Broncos QB Bo Nix and KOA NewsRadio announcer Dave Logan as brand ambassadors.
  • Recently retired Colorado Rockies star Charlie Blackmon didn’t waste any time getting out of Colorado. He and his family have relocated to Atlanta and his home in the Belcaro neighborhood is now listed for $4.3 million.
  • We are seven weeks into the NFL season, and the Denver Broncos have a winning record.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • The Wall Street Journal ranked colleges nationally, and the Colorado results were … interesting? Colorado School of Mines led the state rankings, which is plausible, but then Colorado College was ranked lower than the University of Colorado Denver and Colorado State University.
  • Search and rescue officials made the “agonizing” and “gut-wrenching” decision not to try to retrieve the body of a 31-year-old Colorado man who died climbing Arikaree Peak. Teams made two attempts to retrieve his body but determined it couldn’t be attempted safely.
  • Former longtime 9News investigative reporter Ward Lucas passed away at the age of 75. And Jim Green, the musician and sound artist who created the iconic jingle on the Denver International Airport trains, passed away, also at the age of 75.
  • It was a tough week for musicians:
    • A fight broke out on-stage at a Jane’s Addiction concert when lead singer Perry Farrell became enraged and threw a punch at guitarist Dave Navarro. Crew members had to break up the fight, and the band has now canceled the rest of the tour.
    • Rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs has been arrested, charged with activities including sex trafficking, forced labor, interstate transportation for purposes of prostitution, drug offenses, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice.
  • Zimbabwe announced plans to kill about 200 elephants to feed communities facing severe hunger after the worst drought in four decades.
  • The latest profession to be squeezed financially? Oscar-winning Hollywood producers. Meanwhile, you think your job is tough? X just hired a new head of global marketing.
  • Amazon has told all its employees to be back in the office five days a week. Some staff have speculated that the demand is an attempt to conduct a layoff without actually having to fire people.
  • Home Depot has agreed to pay a $2 million fine for false advertising.
  • River otters look pretty cute, but don’t believe the hype. One attacked a young child in the Seattle area, biting them on the head and briefly dragging them underwater. The child’s mother came to the rescue.
  • The Denver Broncos are 0-2, and the oddsmakers’ predictions of only 4-5 wins is starting to look optimistic.
  • A news anchor running for mayor of São Paulo, Brazil, threw his chair at his opponent during a live television debate.

Who won the week?

  • Boulder is now one of three finalists to play host to the Sundance Film Festival.
  • Casa Bonita ended its formal lottery for reservations and transitioned to an informal lottery. On the first day anyone could make a reservation, more than 50,000 wannabe diners fought for about 60 days’ worth of slots.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • Former Denver Bronco and Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Terrell Davis was handcuffed and removed from a United Airlines flight by FBI agents after a flight attendant alleged Davis hit him. Davis said he and witnesses to the incident were left confused because he simply tapped a flight attendant’s arm to ask for ice.
  • Colorado native Ingrid Andress was the buzz of social media after she butchered the national anthem at the MLB Home Run Derby in a performance that made people nostalgic for Roseanne Barr‘s version. Afterward, Andress acknowledged being drunk and said that she had made the decision to enter rehab.
  • Denver Nuggets first-round draft pick DaRon Holmes II tore his Achilles tendon during his first NBA Summer League game. He is expected to miss the 2024-25 season.
  • Colorado is the fourth most expensive state for home insurance — a metric that reflects the state’s propensity for hail and wildfires.
  • Russia sentenced Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in prison following a very short sham trial. The surprisingly quick nature of the trial led some to speculate that a prisoner swap is being negotiated between Russia and the U.S.
  • A global data network outage related to Microsoft and the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike has shut down everything from airlines to banks to media companies to 911 service. Not the Denver PR Blog, however. We only use time-tested technologies such as AOL dial-up internet service and Netscape browsers.
  • Facebook parent company Meta is walking away from half of its office space in downtown Denver. The tech giant originally had about 40,000 square feet in the Union Station building located at 1900 16th St.
  • Investment company BlackRock has pulled a two-year-old viral online ad that coincidentally included footage of Thomas Crooks, the man who was killed while trying to assassinate former President Donald Trump.
  • Actor Kevin Costner‘s second western-themed “Horizon” movie has been cancelled after the first installment fizzled at the box office.
  • Colorado mortgage holders lead the nation when it comes to average locked-in interest rate vs. the current interest rate. Coloradans who have mortgages average a 3.8% interest rate compared to the 7.25% rate today. That difference, known in the industry as “golden handcuffs,” creates a strong disincentive to sell.
  • The Hard Rock Stadium in Miami failed its off-Broadway test as one of the sites for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Hosting the final of the 2024 Copa America tournament last weekend, the stadium and its security teams were overrun by Colombia and Argentina fans, forcing the venue to close and lock its gates to try to regroup.
  • Actress Shannen Doherty, star of the 1990s iconic TV show “Beverly Hills, 90201,” passed away at the age of 53 following a series of battles with cancer.
  • A 19-year-old member of the Japan women’s artistic gymnastics team headed to the Paris Olympics has been booted off the team after she was caught smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol. If that’s the standard, expect the U.S. Mens Basketball Team to be replaced by the BYU men’s team.
  • Pity the Hamptons elite during this summer’s social season. Many are expressing frustration at the dress codes shared for parties that include things like “red carpet royal core,” “garden party retro” and “Nancy Meyers Meets Wyoming.”
  • Three Colorado newspapers – the Lamar Ledger, the Burlington Record and the (Springfield) Plainsman Herald – announced they are shutting down.
  • It turns out Hello Kitty is not actually a cat, according to its creators.
  • Want to buy a house in Aspen? Good luck. The Colorado Sun reports that the price-per-square-foot of real estate in the first half of the year averaged $3,427. That means a million-dollar budget would get you … 291 square feet of living space.

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Who won the week?

  • PRSA Colorado announced the winners of its annual Gold Pick Special Awards:
    • Public Relations Person of the Year: Merideth Hartung | VP, Social and Digital Media, B Public Relations
    • Joe Fuentes Rookie of the Year: Caroline Campbell | Public Relations and Communications Manager, VISIT DENVER
    • Chapter Service Award: Liz Viscardi | Owner, LV Events and PR
    • Jane Dvorak Mentor of the Year: Shawna Seldon McGregor | Founder, Maverick Public Relations
    • Business Person of the Year: Doyle Albee | President and CEO, Comprise
    • Media Person of the Year: Greg Avery | Managing Editor, Denver Business Journal 
    • Public Relations Team of the Year: Gomez Howard Group
  • My colleague Ramonna Robinson was featured in a Denver Business Journal “Outstanding Women in Business” panel discussion on work-life harmony.
  • Proof PR, which has opened additional offices in New York City and Los Angeles, added Katrina Salon as a PR manager in its Denver office. The agency also announced a number of recent client wins, including Bagel Brands (Einstein Bros.), Tide Cleaners, Lake Hour and Wing Snob.
  • History Colorado named its board room in honor of outgoing board members Cathey McClain Finlon and Tamra Ward.
  • Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone and his wife Jocelyn purchased a $7 million home in Highlands Ranch. The home has six bedrooms and nine bathrooms.
  • Tennis star Serena Williams once tried to deposit a $1 million check at a drive-thru ATM. Said Williams, “I just went through the drive-thru and the guy was like, ‘Uh, I think you need to come inside for this.'”
  • Billionaire philanthropist and former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg has donated $1 billion to Johns Hopkins University to make medical school free for most students and increase financial aid for those in its nursing and public health graduate programs.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ 1 Comment
  • Coke bottles in Europe that have the tops attached to aid in recycling keep hitting drinkers in the face. “You literally have a fight with your bottle now every time you take a drink,” said one frustrated soda enthusiast.
  • Colorado Public Radio reached a confidential settlement with former host Vic Vela. The agreement opens the door for CPR continuing Vela’s “Back from Broken” podcast, which is a curious development since the news outlet previously claimed Vela was fired for “repeatedly fail(ing) to address his hostile behavior” in the workplace.
  • Speaking of CPR, it has now been nine months since the news organization received $8.3 million from a donor it still refuses to disclose.
  • Kid Rock went full-Kid Rock in a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine, in which he allegedly “ranted about immigration, liberally used the N-word and, at one point, waved a gun in the air.”
  • The liability waivers that Colorado ski resorts have relied on to protect them from litigation and financial judgments aren’t as iron-clad as thought, according to a new ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court.
  • Colorado has seen a spike in gun-related road rage incidents over the past six years, and now has a rate that is double the national average.
  • The WNBA is investigating a mass sponsorship agreement between the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and all 12 players on the Las Vegas Aces that would give each player $100,000. The WNBA is concerned that the deal circumvents its team salary cap. The real issue is how vulnerable the WNBA is to outside influences such as gamblers and sponsors because its salaries are so low. Top veteran players barely make more than $200,000 per season, and rookie stars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese make closer to $76,000.
  • Cable channel AMC‘s threshold for adding trigger warnings to old movies seems to be moving. It makes sense that AMC would add disclaimers disavowing racist or stereotypical portrayals of characters in movies such as “Gone with the Wind” or “The Jungle Book,” but the channel has now added them to “Goodfellas.”
  • Actress Scarlett Johansson has threatened a lawsuit alleging that OpenAI illegally copied her voice after she refused to license it to the company for its AI efforts. Johansson famously portrayed the voice of the AI assistant in the 2013 movie, “Her.”
  • Denver-based online worker training platform Guild unexpectedly laid off 25% of its 1,200 employees, and its explanation for why was a “buzzword salad” that felt like it was written by AI, according to SE2‘s Eric Anderson.
  • The chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), Martin Gruenberg, agreed to resign once a successor is confirmed following a damning report that concluded Gruenberg was responsible for a hostile workplace at the agency.
  • A recent Fox31 social media post about a drunk-driving crackdown in Denver featured a prominent photo of a police officer wearing a City of Miami safety vest. I guess the Fox31 photo archives aren’t curated all that carefully.
  • Tom Brady‘s attempt to purchase a minority stake in the NFL‘s Las Vegas Raiders has hit several road bumps with other team owners who must approve the sale. They are concerned that his presence as the lead FOX Sports analyst for NFL games poses a conflict, and they aren’t happy about the steep discount Raiders owner Mark Davis appears to be trying to give Brady.
  • A California mother was fined $88,000 after her children “collected clams — thinking they were picking up seashells — on the beach without a fishing license.” A judge has agreed to reduce the fine to $500.
  • The stock of E.W. Scripps, owner of Denver7/KMGH, is trading at about $2.50, its lowest level since 2009. You might want to say a prayer for the employer contribution portion of its employees’ 401(k)s.

Who won the week?

  • Altitude Sports’ Vic Lombardi is being inducted into the Heartland Emmy Silver Circle, which recognizes his 25 years in the television industry.
  • CBS4‘s 10 p.m. newscast finished the May ratings period as No. 1 among adults 25-54 for the first time since 1995.
  • The Trust for Public Land ranks Denver as the 13th-best big-city park system in the nation.
  • Liam and Charlotte were the most popular baby names in Colorado in 2023. Milo, Arlo and Atlas also made the top 100.
  • The median pay for CEOs of S&P 500 companies is now $15.7 million.
  • Colorado Springs is the third-best place to live according to U.S. News & World Report, while Boulder ranks 10th, Fort Collins 39th and Denver 40th. Huntsville, Ala., ranks as the seventh-best place to live, so there probably is a flaw in the methodology.
  • The NCAA has reached a $2.8 billion settlement that opens the doors for universities to directly pay its athletes. Part of that settlement will be used to pay former athletes who were denied payment in the past.

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ 1 Comment

Who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment

So, who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • Vogue released its 2024 list of best Denver restaurants, which is great. One of its selections, Populist, closed in 2019, however, which is not. I expect Racines to be on next year’s list.
  • AI-generated fake photographs of a “nude” Taylor Swift spread across the internet this week. The silver lining: it may spur federal legislation making the creation and dissemination of deepfake images illegal.
  • Gov. Jared Polis claims he wants a high-speed transportation option to connect Denver and Colorado Springs, but when a motorcyclist posted a video showing him making the commute in just 20 minutes (he was, at times, traveling 180 mph), the Colorado State Patrol issued an arrest warrant.
  • CDOT has made $4 million so far from the cameras that identify drivers illegally weaving in or out of carpool lanes. I expect potholes to now be fixed faster, CDOT.
  • Speaking of CDOT, thoughts and prayers to I-70 this weekend. It is that time of year when the Aspen X Games, the Breckenridge International Snow Sculpture Championship and the Freestyle Competition in Vail all happen on the same weekend.
  • Tesla lost about $80 billion in market cap this week after its Q4 2023 earnings disappointed analysts. CEO Elon Musk didn’t help much when his earnings conference call was described by analysts as a “train wreck.”
  • Thefts from online payment apps such as Venmo, Cash App, PayPal and Zelle are “skyrocketing.”
  • Director Greta Gerwig and lead actress Margot Robbie – the driving forces behind the billion-dollar “Barbie” movie – did not receive Oscar nominations for their work while actor Ryan Gosling did for his portrayal of Ken. That, some say, “kind of proves the point of the movie, that the patriarchy is still with us.”
  • Denver-based VF Corp. – parent company of brands such as Vans, The North Face, Timberland and Dickies – had personal information for 35.5 million customers stolen by cyber criminals.
  • Atomic scientists are keeping the “Doomsday Clock” at 90 seconds to midnight – as close to midnight as ever – as conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza drive the risk of global catastrophe.
  • Former WWE CEO and current board member Vince McMahon has been sued for allegedly engaging in human trafficking.
  • The L.A. Times “has been thrown into a state of mayhem as it laid off 115 positions – about 20% of its newsroom. Said one staffer, “I cannot overstate the level of chaos.”
  • Speaking of layoffs, those in the tech industry continue. This week, eBay announced plans to lay off 1,000 employees, SAP 8,000 employees, and Microsoft, 1,900 employees. Those cuts follow recent ones from Amazon, Google, Twitch and Audible and TikTok.
  • The CEO of Kyte Baby, a manufacturer of infant clothing, has now had to apologize twice for refusing to allow an employee to work remotely from a NICU where the employee’s newborn was being treated. The first apology was immediately shouted down for being robotic and insincere.
  • The CEOs of Alaska Airlines, United Airlines and American Airlines are all expressing frustration and anger at Boeing’s ongoing quality-control problems. That’s not exactly a recipe for Boeing getting past this quickly.
  • Closing retailer H&M has removed and apologized for a school uniform ad that critics said sexualized children.
  • Beloved University of Colorado and Denver Broncos announcer Larry Zimmer passed away. He was 88.

So, who won the week?

Who Had the Worst Week?

~ Jeremy Story ~ Leave a comment
  • The Boeing 737 Max has become the Ford Pinto of jets. The aircraft faced a global grounding for 20 months starting in 2019 due to malfunctions in its flight control system, leading to two fatal crashes that claimed 346 lives. This week, it has been grounded again after a side door plug blew out mid-flight on an Alaska Airlines jet.
  • A Texas man accused of shoplifting filed a handwritten lawsuit against Walmart demanding either $100 million or “unlimited lifetime free shopping” at the store.
  • There are a lot of talented reporters in Denver, but I have never used regional Emmy award wins as a measure for who is among the best. The number of reporters, both great and average, who have more than a dozen of the things speaks to how liberally they hand them out. That belief was further confirmed this week when ESPN acknowledged submitting fake names to the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) to obtain more than 30 fraudulent Emmy awards for members of its “College GameDay” show who were technically ineligible. ESPN then re-engraved the Emmys with actual names and gave them to the employees.
  • Frigid weather has caused more than 10,000 flight delays today across the country.
  • The National Association of Realtors is a bit of a dumpster fire at the moment. CEO Tracy Kasper abruptly resigned this week after allegedly receiving a blackmail threat, five months after her predecessor resigned after being accused of sexual harassment.
  • The Wall Street Journal reported concerns among leaders and board members at Tesla and SpaceX regarding alleged illegal drug use by CEO Elon Musk. The mercurial CEO responded in part with a couple of statements, including “Whatever I am doing, I should obviously keep doing it” and “If drugs actually helped improve my net productivity over time, I would definitely take them.”
  • It will be 78 degrees in Miami this weekend, but weather forecasters are predicting 0-degree weather with a negative 30-degree wind chill for Saturday’s Kansas City Chiefs–Miami Dolphins playoff game in Kansas City.
  • Some members of the Gambian national soccer team passed out mid-flight on their way to an Africa Cup of Nations tournament when the oxygen supply on their Air Cote d’Ivoire flight failed. Said the team’s coach, “I am ready to die for Gambia, but on the football pitch, not off it. I had short dreams where my life passed, I had moments where I thought I was dying.”
  • Quote of the week: “I am not trying to villainize my mom,” uttered by Denver restaurateur Frank Schultz as he attempted to villainize his mom in court regarding a lawsuit about the finances of his company, Tavern Hospitality Group. Schultz’s mom handled the company’s financial accounts.
  • Disgraced former Denver Public Schools board member Auon’tai Anderson first chose not to run for school board re-election because polls showed him with the support of only 9% of voters. Then he announced he would instead run for a state house seat. Well, it turns out those voters also recognized his name, and he has now dropped out of that race as well. And now he has founded an education nonprofit, but of course there is already an issue: 9News reported that “the nonprofit is not currently recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)3 nonprofit, which would allow for tax-deductible contributions while requiring more financial transparency and conflict of interest protections.”
  • Even winners at this year’s Golden Globes weren’t aware of who is behind the awards. Many thanked the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a now-defunct organization that had been heavily criticized over the past few years for a lack of diversity, transparency and competency. It turns out that Dick Clark Productions actually owns the Golden Globes, having acquired the brand earlier this year.

So, who won the week?